Last month in “Fast Laps,” we covered the season finale for both the electric and nitro
series of the Jimmy Babcock Racing League, and the photos for this month’s column came
from the inaugural Top Notch Series event at SDRC Raceway in San Diego, CA. ;ough
many series have been successful in the past by simply having the host tracks band
together for organization, the promoters of the JBRL and TNS both shared their insight on
what it takes to put together a successful series.

THAT HOLDS IT TOGETHER

When asked what the biggest challenges were when creating the JBRL, JimmyBabcock (top right) said, “When I first started, the hardest thing was coordinating datesthat worked for the tracks in the series. I had to contact promoters in the area to workwithin an existing schedule of other events.” ;e issue of date coordination is magnified forErik “Notch” Johnson (right), who started his Top Notch Series at the end of 2012, talkedabout the challenges of securing trophies and ra;e prizes to incentivize racers to attend,especially as marketing budgets have tightened for many manufacturers, “;e main chal-lenge for putting together the first series was convincing the manufacturers that we’d havea good turnout — that’s why we’ve had more sponsors sign on after the first round, wherewe had 22 main events. ;e biggest factor in getting manufacturer support is to be flexible,especially if you’re just starting out. Be open with the companies that you approach andlet them know what your intentions are so that they can see the value of getting involved,because there’s only one chance to make a first impression.”

Below: O;ering small trophies
per round is a great incentive for
racers to stick around until the
end of the series for the bigger
prizes!

WRAP;UP

For as much as RC tends to model itselfafter full-size motorsports, it’s interestingto note that all major RC championships aredecided in just a single event, rather than aseason-long points battle; while a travelingseries for a national championship is cost-prohibitive, putting together a list of localtracks to participate takes someone steppingup to make it happen. ;e creation of a pointsseries not only unifies a region’s racers andgives them the long-term goal of finishing theseason, but accumulating points over multipleraces emphasizes consistency, which makesfor closer racing and better racers; my favoritepart of participating in a long points series isseeing how even the most inexperiencedracers have improved from the first roundto the last (though the bigger trophiesare nice, too). Of course, the success of apoints series relies solely on how well it ispromoted to racers in the area; as Babcockpointed out, “If people don’t know about it,they can’t show up.”

FOR A FULL RACE REPORT FROM ROUND ONE
OF THE TOP NOTCH SERIES, CHECK OU T THE
S TORY ON RCCARAC TION.COM